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the right one.

The issue in the present case does not, however, now arise directly in the English

legislation since s 170(1) of the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979 makes
it an offence for any person to be concerned in harbouring prohibited goods who

'does so with intent to defraud Her Majesty of any duty payable on the goods or to
evade any such prohibition or restriction with respect to the goods', thus giving

statutory effect to the result arrived at in Frailey v Charlton. This has not been

done in Jamaica and perhaps not elsewhere where the earlier English legislation
was taken as a model.”

In R v. Cohen [1951] 1 All ER 203 Lord Goddard, at page 203, held that:

“Apart from an intent to defraud, with which we will deal separately, the offence

consists in knowingly harbouring uncustomed goods, and, in our opinion, that

means that the accused knowingly harboured goods and also knew that they were
uncustomed. To prove a conscious harbouring it would usually be enough to show

that goods which were subject to duty were found in the possession of the
accused. If they are found in his house, warehouse or other place under his

control, that would establish a prima facie case that he knowingly harboured

them, though, no doubt, he could rebut this by proving that he did not know of
their presence, for instance, by showing that someone had “dumped” them there

without his knowledge or privity. Once it is proved that he knowingly harboured
goods subject to duty, s 259 throws on him the onus of proving that the goods are,

in fact, customed. To do this he would have to prove that the duties had actually

been paid, or, at least, that they had been declared and that the customs officers,
in the exercise of a discretion which, as is well known, they are allowed, had

permitted the goods to enter. The latter case would probably seldom arise and
could only occur in the case of a small amount of spirits, tobacco, jewellery or the

like, and we need not deal further with this.”

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